Glorifying Christ Every Way: Remembering J. I. Packer
A Humble Servant
On the very day that Crossway invited me to share a reminiscence of J. I. Packer on the fifth anniversary of his passing, I had occasion to remember the event that began Packer’s lifelong influence on me. It is appropriate for me to share this convergence because there is an important way in which my own story is also the story of many thousands of people.
On the day I received the invitation from Crossway, a friend shared that on the previous day he had seen a library display on the topic of reading that included a book titled Reading for Life. I was a co-editor and contributor to this book, in which one hundred Wheaton College professors named the three books that had influenced their lives the most, along with a brief account of the nature of the influence.
I named J. I. Packer’s book Fundamentalism and the Word of God as one of the three most influential books in my life. The unlikely way in which I encountered it is the story of a common man named J. I. Packer writing for the common person. As a nineteen-year-old “farm boy from Iowa” (as I self-identify right to the present day), I wandered into a Christian bookstore in my hometown of Pella, Iowa. It was the first time I had visited the store.
In a move that can only be ascribed to God’s directing, my eyes fell on the spine of a thin paperback book titled Fundamentalism and the Word of God. I did not even know what the word fundamentalism meant. I saw that the book was a defense of the authority of the Bible for Christian belief, so I bought it. One of the things I remember relishing was the British flavor of the book’s content, and my imagination soared when I read the quaint British terminology used to describe Packer’s position, namely, Warden of Tyndale House in Oxford, England.
The reason I do not hesitate to call my experience representative of a multitude of people is that how Packer reached me was the printed word. This is the story of Packer’s life and ministry. Packer never held a prestigious professorship at a famous university, nor did he fill a high-visibility pulpit permanently. Furthermore, he lived before the age of social media and the instant dissemination they confer. When I interviewed Packer for my biography of him, he affirmed his steadfast refusal throughout his life to cultivate a following.
Additionally, Packer was a soft-spoken and unassuming man. No assignment was too small or humble for him. During one of the summers that the ESV translation committee met in Cambridge, England, Packer accepted an invitation to speak to a group of local young people in a church member’s living room. One of the translators and his wife smuggled their way into the meeting. They later reported that the living room was so crowded that some of the young people sat under a table.
In view of this absence of ordinary channels for becoming widely known, how is it possible that surveys of influential evangelicals conducted early in the present century found Packer near the tops of the lists? The answer is that J. I. Packer achieved his prominence through the printed word and its uncanny ability to reach ordinary people in the ordinary circumstances of life. Some of Packer’s books, such as his first book (Fundamentalism and the Word of God), began as a series of addresses to students and lay people. His signature book Knowing God, which sold a million and a half copies, began as a series of articles on basic Christian beliefs for a religious magazine. J. I. Packer is a classic case of someone who was faithful in little and thereby found himself set over much. I cannot think of a better validation of the effectiveness of Christian publishing than the career of J. I. Packer.
Recalling the contours of Packer’s life on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of his death prompted me to renew my contact with my biography of Packer, published a decade ago. It was in every way an edifying experience, and I hereby share some of the highlights of Packer’s evangelical life (as the title of the biography calls it).
Reconnecting with my biography reminded me of how important my limited personal contacts with Packer have been in my life. My first contact was by correspondence. As a relatively unknown author, I was encouraged by the publisher of my book on the Puritans to think big and ask Packer to write a preface to my book. Packer wrote an essay-length introduction that was so substantial that he later included it as a chapter in one of his books. I will note in passing that perhaps no one in history has written as many forewords and endorsements of other authors’ books as J. I. Packer. It is a supreme tribute to his generosity.
Shortly after Packer agreed to write an introduction for my book, he visited Wheaton College to speak at a Puritan conference. I was privileged to serve as Packer’s chauffeur during that visit, and he came to my home for an evening meal to which my pastor and his wife were also invited. We all felt completely at ease with Packer, who seemed more like a longtime friend than a famous person known around the world. When Packer was on the speaking circuit, he regularly stayed with ordinary people, and his presence fell like a benediction on the people who hosted him or in other ways rubbed shoulders with him.
“Glorify Christ every way.”
Another hallmark of Packer’s life is the expansiveness of his ministry. His writings are so extensive that it is impossible to compile a complete list of them. The topics on which he published the most were Puritanism, Anglican doctrine and ecclesiology, and the authority of the Bible, but the more widely one reads in Packer’s published works, the more clearly it emerges that in the conglomerate, he wrote on nearly every aspect of Christian living.
Packer was a man of brilliant intellect who loved specialized scholarship. He could write at that upper level with the best, but he rarely indulged that interest. He wrote mid-level scholarship that was thoroughly informed by specialized scholarship but written for the ordinary Christian. The title of a book published in honor of Packer got it exactly right: Doing Theology for the People of God.
The majority of the time that I was privileged to spend in Packer’s presence came when we served together on the translation committee of the English Standard Version of the Bible. All that I have covered in my reminiscence of him was evident every day the committee met. Packer was a man of immense knowledge and intellectual acuity, but I remember him even more as a humble man who was eminently companionable with those engaged in a common task.
To those who spent time with Packer, it was evident that he was a kindred spirit in the faith and a fellow traveler on the Way. The authentic spiritual note was always evident. J. I. Packer was above all serviceable to the kingdom. When asked late in life what his final words to the church might be, Packer replied, “I think I can boil it down to four words: Glorify Christ every way.”
Leland Ryken is the author of J. I. Packer: An Evangelical Life.
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